5BMF, NYFOS, And The Center Commemorate 50 Years Since The Stonewall Uprising With Two Concerts

FIVE BOROUGHS MUSIC FESTIVAL, NEW YORK FESTIVAL OF SONG, AND THE LGBT COMMUNITY CENTER COMMEMORATE 50 YEARS SINCE THE STONEWALL UPRISING WITH TWO CONCERTS, JUNE 11 & 25

Programs feature LGBT composers and librettists

NEW YORK, NY (May 24, 2019) — Five Boroughs Music Festival (5BMF), in collaboration with the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) and the LGBT Community Center (The Center), will celebrate WorldPride in two programs featuring LGBT composers and librettists, both commemorating 50 years since the Stonewall uprising:

• NYFOS NEXT: LAURA KAMINSKY & FRIENDS
• Tuesday, June 11, 2019 at 7:30 PM at The Center

• MANNING THE CANON: SONGS OF GAY LIFE
• Tuesday, June 25, 2019 at 7:30 PM at The Center

The first program, entitled NYFOS NEXT: LAURA KAMINSKY & FRIENDS, features a salon of contemporary art songs by  women composers and librettists, curated by composer Laura Kaminsky. The concert includes the world premiere of After Stonewall, a song cycle by Kaminsky, Kayla Cashetta, Jennifer Higdon, Laura Karpman, Paula Kimper, and Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum, set to poems by Elaine Sexton. The program will also feature the New York premiere of  Fierce Grace: Jeannette Rankin with libretto by Kimberly Reed and contributions by Kaminsky, Karpman, Kitty Brazelton, and Ellen Reid, performed by mezzo-soprano Heather Johnson and pianist Mila Henry.

The second program, entitled MANNING THE CANON: SONGS OF GAY LIFE, features a quartet of vocalists – Daniel Mcgrew (tenor), Scott Murphree (tenor), Efraín Solís (baritone), and Matt Bohler (bass) – in a musical portrait of life, love and loss in the world of gay men. The program, which originally premiered at 5BMF in 2009, includes songs by Poulenc, Tchaikovsky, Griffes, Bernstein, Porter, Blitzstein and more.

Program Information

NYFOS NEXT: LAURA KAMINSKY & FRIENDS
Tuesday, June 11, 2019 at 7:30 PM
The Center | 208 W 13th St, New York, NY 10011

FIERCE GRACE: JEANNETTE RANKIN (2017) New York Premiere
Libretto by Kimberly Reed

1. 1917 - A Millinery Resolution

    music by Ellen Reid

1. 1941 - Just Listen for the Bellowing

    music by Kitty Brazelton

    III. 1968 - 10,000 Go-Go Boots

    music by Laura Kaminsky

1. Present Day - Think is to Thank

    music by Laura Karpman

Heather Johnson, mezzo-soprano
Mila Henry, piano

AFTER STONEWALL (2019) World Premiere
Six poems by Elaine Sexton

1. Burning Bar

    music by Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum

1. Marriage Equality

    music by Laura Kaminsky

    III.  Present, but Gone

    music by Kayla Cashetta

1. Still Queer

    music by Laura Karpman

1. Only After Stonewall

    music by Paula M. Kimper

1. Anthem

    music by Jennifer Higdon, from the poem Pride

Devony Smith, soprano
Heather Johnson, mezzo-soprano
Jorell Williams, baritone
Michael Barrett, piano

MANNING THE CANON: SONGS OF GAY LIFE
Tuesday, June 25, 2019 at 7:30 PM
The Center | 208 W 13th St, New York, NY 10011

MEN ON MEN, MAN TO MAN
  Purest Kind of a Guy (Marc Blitzstein)
  Is It Dirty (Christopher Berg/Frank O’Hara)
  An Admission (Joe Thalken/Mark Campbell)

OUR GAY HERITAGE IN ART SONG: FULFILLMENT
  Der Gondelfahrer (Franz Schubert/Johann Mayrhofer)
  Montparnasse (Francis Poulenc/Apollinaire)
  At the Ball (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky/Aleksei Tolstoi)
  Evening Song (Charles Tomlinson Griffes/Sidney Lanier)

DRAG ACTS
  Bruce (John Wallowitch)
  Boardwalk Scene from Casino Paradise (William Bolcom/Arnold Weinstein)

OUR GAY HERITAGE IN ART SONG: MIXED SIGNALS
  Si vous n'avez rien à me dire (Camille Saint-Saëns/Victor Hugo)
  Night covers up the rigid land (Benjamin Britten/W.H. Auden)
  Polo (Manuel de Falla)

LOCKER ROOM ENCOUNTER, CRISIS, LIBERATION, CELEBRATION
  Tennis Duet (Cy Coleman/David Zippel)
  Walt Whitman in 1989 (Chris de Blasio/Perry Brass)
  To What You Said (Leonard Bernstein/Walt Whitman)
  You’re the Top (Cole Porter)

Steven Blier, piano
Daniel McGrew, tenor
Scott Murphree, tenor
Efraín Solís, baritone
Matt Bohler, bass

Tickets

Tickets range from $15 to $50 and can be purchased at http://5bmf.org/nyfos-next-manning-the-canon/. 

About Laura Kaminsky
Laura Kaminsky, “one of the top 35 female composers in classical music” (The Washington Post), frequently addresses issues including sustainability, war, and human rights in her work. “Full of fire as well as ice, (she writes) in an idiom that contrasts dissonance and violence with tonal beauty and meditative reflection" (American Record Guide). With co-librettists Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed, she has created the most widely-produced contemporary opera in the U.S., As One (2014), as well as Some Light Emerges (Houston Grand Opera 2017), and the forthcoming Today It Rains (Opera Parallèle/American Opera Projects 2019). Upcoming: a Piano Quintet for Ursula Oppens and the Cassatt String Quartet; and with Kimberly Reed, Postville, inspired by the unprecedented and devastating immigration raid there in 2008, for a consortium led by Santa Fe and San Francisco Operas. She is head of composition at the Conservatory of Music/SUNY Purchase.

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Photo of NYFOS's Manning The Canon in 2010 courtesy of Matthew Murphy